Three Dead Oysters

How can I come to love you?

Learning enlightenment was hard enough.

You left me in the absence of influence

and now who will I follow?

For every pearl there are three dead oysters.

Nothing to Keep out the Cold

Flee worn wooden life.
The clock counts down the minutes.
Old draping yellow thrown
The ancient king sits in it.

All great minds have walked this maze
Pale beneath the sun light.
She holds her wicked eyes
unmoved upon their shoulders.

Autumn came to my back yard
And the leaves rained down like leather.
Vanity fell to the thankless ground.
The naked trees cried to their brothers.

I walked among the bodies of summer
The hardened shells of bees.
I found myself in cold despair
For they had found their peace.

I cradled needless jealousy
For their ceaseless state of sleep.

Finding a Page

It’s funny for no reason.
Watching the writer, smoke,
breathing out of her arched,
Jewish nose.
Behind her pierced ears
are chains of blonde hair
and sunglasses define a stern brow.

She sees no color on the street.
All the cars are smoke.
As she walks for the door,
her mind grows legs,
wonders to the last page,
stomps a fly and scribbles
“The End” with its collapsed black wing.

Her blonde brother or partner.
The man in the red shirt.
The boy with the same haircut
-like a soup bowl- since he went to church
with his mother
and his face was pearly
and cheeks grew no hair
but wore the smile of youth
or a face painted dragonfly.

The man in the red shirt now,
wears a smile the writer gave him
on the third day they met,
reads all the crinkled pages
from the trash bin,
rewinds the writers thin frame
and washes her face with a fine jewelry cloth,
for her features are sliver,
her thighs, empty cardboard boxes,
filled only with the thoughts she can draw in English.

The writer is always alone.
She sips coke, like its the ocean.
Dances like autumn, the dead leaf's,
anyone could see are pages in her notebook,
and smoke was always the inspiration,
carving her world of madness.
The jellyfish and the snowman.
The common place gardener.

She lives her life so detached,
with him in the 7th ring,
spinning with the clouds,
in front of the sun,
not by her bedside,
by the island shore.

They are at a cafe table.
Him reading, her dreaming.
Each carrying the weight of
solitude.

A Work Day

I worked yesterday at Annie Ruby's Cafe from 9am-3pm.

I washed dishes,

thought about life,

made fruit salad,

smiled at an older man,

dropped a glass bowl.

I ate half of a cream filled donut,

ran into the door,

laughed at something that wasn’t that funny,

cleaned the front window,

opened all 4 fridges,

reapplied lipstick,

sifted powdered sugar,

opened a large can of hot fudge,

restocked the waffle cones,

told someone something about me,

took a lunch break,

wrote a ticket for a brownie sunday,

forgot to serve a unsweet tea,

got a head ache,

chopped celery,

ate a lemon cookie,

put away the cool whip,

changed the sink water,

knocked over the Dawn dish soap,

met a girl who couldn’t speak,

brought a woman some plane chips,

made an orange aide,

took a bathroom break,

washed romaine,

sung a song in my head,

brought the cook a Dr. Pepper,

watched a youtube video,

scrubbed a cookie sheet,

heard a story about beer,

talked to my mom,

dropped an ice cube,

laughed at something that really was funny,

saw a man in a red bow tie,

wiped off a table that looked clean,

stirred the carmel,

went looking for mayo,

confessed my love of Michael Bubble,

looked -unsuccessfully- for straws,

got my tips from the day before,

talked about my work schedule,

chopped 5 boiled eggs,

saw a yellow cake come out of the oven,

heard about a death in the family,

took off my shoes,

put them back on,

remembered not to take life to seriously.

A Room of Madonna's House

I can barely hold my eyes open.

And all the icons are staring

in deep prayer

and the bones of their folded

hands are crunched.

The jaws of untrained hounds.

Like the reflections on the water.

The notes of a perfectionist.

Gray, closer to wedding dress ivory,

Gray hair brushed back.

And yellow, yellow walls

that fed the flowers,

hacked from the roots of

the memorable, the missing

the gray haired woman

feeding the dog,

halting the rain,

bending the air,

with grace like a kitchen knife.

She painted Christ's fine garments

and gold around his head,

like a flashlight,

held by the sparrows.

You were the unknown Pasiso.

You painted gods son,

hung above my cradling bed.

1 Million Faces

All the days are gray

and i continue to neglect

this life I’ve been given.

I can’t keep pretending.

My confidence is slipping

away.

They can see through me

and i am so bare.

So false and not what

they thought I was.

1 million unhappy faces came to me last night

stood by my bedside and

whispered what I already knew.

Through the written air,

I was a fool among fools.

The Art Of Exhaling

Torn paper became the spoons in the kitchen

Olivia the fish splashed through your hair

You set them free

Immersed them in the kitchen sink

Among soap suds and bread knifes

Torn paper became your chocolate birthday cake

Orange peels and paper plates!

Left town the very next day

Be carful of your eyes as they grow dry

Watching Olivia

Olivia this is your twin

A hundred red helmets have set you apart

Live your life as if pigs pirouetted

And told bedtime stores to their children

Bring in the trash cans from 2 days prior

It was curtains closed

Torn paper became curtains closed

In your kitchen windows

In your looming office

In the ways you were feeling

Blue eyes

Closed tight

Held up the sky

Britain this decade was infancy

Light was the stan of your skin

You Olivia, child of a white mother

Thought you’d turn coal black

Still weren't the flashlights enough to light your path?

The walls in this house fell wile I was sleeping

And in my dreams they were a choir singing.

A Story of Shadows

You are like me but lesser.
Caged. Crying. Whispering
to the good witch
in robes like tar,
searing the skin.
You move over ground
that will hold you.
Are you absence when light is extinguished?
Are you what makes the Nightingale blind?

The Blue Bloods

All the silk stockings on 2nd st.
the beautiful people, the blue bloods.
Away from the common herd, the unwashed,
the man in the coal mine.
Away from the world, she sat with lilly white innocence
and curled brown hair.

My Life According to Patty Griffen

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to at least 15 people and include me. You can't use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! Repost as "my life according to (artist)"


Pick Your Artist:
Patty Griffen

Are you male or female?
Mother Of God

Describe Yourself:
Burgundy Shoes

How do you feel:
Heavenly Day

Describe where you currently live:
Someone Else's Tomorrow

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
10 Million Miles

Your favorite form of transportation:
Stolen Car

Your best friend is:
Not Alone

What is life to you:
Long Ride Home

Your fear:
Useless Desires

What is the best advice you have to give:
One Big Love

How I would like to die:
Nobody's Crying

My Motto:
I Don't Ever Give Up

A Colorful Scene.

Where was it I was going to?

This was my home, back when I was small.

I Love...

i love art

it keeps me sane

when nothing else can

it lets me sleep at night

and i feel less alone.

A Love Story

It was the ocean and your
long soft hair
that made him fall in
love that day.

My Sagging Black Fears

I have nothing more to say. My head has run out of words and I shall never again say something beautiful. It’s the curse of a child to be loved for who they are and it’s a cruel shock to realize that as you’ve grown older your flaws have become more apparent. But I am still innocent, not as adored, but still untouched.

And my feet, they’ve grown weary from chasing the trains. Their whistles swell in my carved head. I need to wake up and stop pretending that all the nights are peaceful.

What a broken dove I’ve become. My feathers are bent and crippled and I claw for some kind of stability. Until I found out it was your skin I’d torn. Then I cried a thousand broken tears.

I need to get some sleep, but all the pillows have gone. So my head sags through the mattress onto the cold stone floor. Chipped and depleted over the years, my head found no rest.

So I called upon a man who lives under my bed. With cold bare feet, he waits in peace. But when I call him he cries like a child. His rotten teeth sneer and rattle. His hair is copper and his skin is dust and he is the clay I molded out of my every fear. If you looked, where I see his yellowing eyes, you would only see the smooth of a worn floor.

I woke that poor creature. I opened my window and when I felt the wind rustle across my face.
I sent all my fears away.
I sent him home.

The Crow

Loretta I see your fears
eating at the corners of your mind
One by one they creep upon you in the dark

I watched you crying
watched you dry your tears on your apron
and walk back to the kitchen

Loretta your dreams have died
your muse was thrown out with the murky bath water
and left for the foxes to pillage

Little girl, you’ve been forgotten,
the world’s eye never saw your face

Loretta your beauty’s fading
a little more each day-
you didn’t deserve this sorrow

You are just another dirty face in the crowd
and when the riots are over
we’ll have nothing left to fight for
You’ll go home to all the rotting food in your cupboards

Loretta I’m sorry for your pain,
your crying sings the children to sleep
When everything upright, falls into decay
know that my black wings eventually cover your
unsettled eyes

The Day I Lost My Inspiration.

I was here. Waiting. And waiting still.
But dear muse have you left me for good?
Because my life is a dying crow
and without you I am a cripple.
Without you all things turn away.

Your laughter drains from my head
and the withering sun,
it is extinguished from my sky.
I am always left staring at the
black hole where you stood.

I am here. Waiting. And waiting still.
Muse, you’ve wandered from my life
and with your absence
all doors close.
The stars don’t even shine through

and I shall dream no more.

These are the Gates to the Ocean.

This is the way I love you
and these are the gates to the ocean.

These are blue eyes closing.
I was temporary and careless.

And when life leaves me here,
I look through the doorway
and into the sun.


Soundtrack: First Day of My Life -Bright Eyes
The video is weird, listen to it with your eyes closed.